Adventrx shares drop 25 percent on stock sale

Shares of Adventrx Pharmaceuticals hit a historic low Friday after the company said it would sell 21.25 million shares of stock to fund trials of a reformulated chemotherapy drug and an experimental sickle cell anemia therapy.

The offering price, 80 cents a share, was 14 percent less than the 93-cent closing price for the San Diego company’s stock on Thursday.

Adventrx shares fell 23 cents, or 25 percent, on Friday to 70 cents.

The stock had traded above $70 a share in the summer of 2007 but has been priced below $5 a share for most of the last three years.

The company plans to use the proceeds from the upcoming sale, about $17 million, to launch Phase 3 clinical trials of ANX-514 and ANX-188.

The company had about $32.8 million in cash and cash equivalents on Sept. 30, down from $40.7 million in cash and equivalents on July 31, according to financial reports by the drug developer.

ANX-514 is a new version of the government-approved cancer drug Taxotere that excludes polysorbate 80, an emulsifier that can cause mild to severe allergic responses in some patients.

Taxotere is approved to treat breast, non-small-cell lung, prostate, gastric and head and neck malignancies.

The Food and Drug Administration rejected ANX-514 in February and sent the drug back for more tests because an earlier trial failed to show that the therapy was biologically equivalent to the original treatment.

ANX-188 is being tested to treat sickle cell crisis, which occurs in sickle cell anemia patients when deformed red blood cells pile up in the blood vessels that supply oxygen to organs and tissue. The painful condition can damage the eyes and kidneys, and can trigger brain hemorrhaging and strokes.

Adventrx researchers are working on a plan for the ANX-514 trial and plans to discuss the matter with FDA regulators by the end of the year, according to the company’s website. Talks with regulators about the ANX-188 trial haven’t begun.

The fund-raising effort comes three months after the company pulled the plug on development of another chemotherapy reformulation — known as Exelbine — when federal regulators rejected the treatment because samples were mishandled after a key clinical trial.